Biggest Mistake You've Made With Your Boat ?

[ally606]

i have a very bad habit of loosing keys in unimaginable ways, put me in an empty room and I'll still loose them... Anyway, one gorgeous morning (we don't get too many of them in Scotland!) we go to the boat which was at a friends farm, get the boat ready, hitch up to the car, drive to the slip only to realise the boat keys were left on the swim platform - we spent the next hour driving back along a one mile stretch of the busy road trying to find them glistening in the sun, I ended up phoning she who must be obeyed (the loving wife) asking her to spend the day with us on the boat and oh, can you bring the spare set of keys.

One week later having learnt from my mistake, we arrived at the boat with the keys only to realise no key for the wheel clamp - the scary thing it took only 15 minutes with a big rock to destroy the clamp so we could get the trailer mobile. Purchased new clamp that same day and some idiot (not me) put the lock barrel in back to front - so we had to destroy this lock again...

I also took the old Mastercraft I used to own out one day when it was probably a little too choppy on the water, about 1 mile from shore the prop shaft snapped with the boat flexing and torquing in the waves. kind of scary when the survival time in the water was only about 15-20 mins and you've got a LOT of water gushing in. Fortunately 2 bilge pumps and ballast pumps as backup were more than able to keep the boat afloat until we were rescued. But what amazed me was when we were towed to shore by the lifeboat we had to queue at the slip to get the boat out - the guy in front said he had been waiting longer so wanted to take his boat out first - not caring that we were about to sink! Some people are just a$$ holes I guess.

[srock]

I had a bass boat thaking his own sweet time moving out from the low small bridge at the end of my canal. I was so annoyed I forgot to drop the tower. Crash...ouch, aside from the scratches the tower and fiberglass were never damaged.

[noles_fan]

While pulling my old boat out for the first time, I backed the trailer too far into the water and ended up pulling the boat out with one side resting on the fender instead of the trailer bunk. Bent the fender a little bit but did not do any damage to the hull, although I did fell like an idiot on the ramp.

[M3Fan]

Went to a new ramp in northern Wisconsin this year. Beautiful, cement ramp. My wife is sitting in the boat idling around, waiting to load the boat onto the trailer. We're all tired from packing up and cleaning the cabin out. Everyone is already at their wits end and our 1 year old is also in the boat. A bass boat full of fishermen is nearby as an audience. I consider myself a pro at trailering since we trailer all year. I back down the ramp, then decide to back deeper to wet the bunks. Unfortunately, the tires went off the far end of the ramp. The ramp was a little short. I try to pull forward and can't. The frontmost crossmember of the trailer is hung up on the end of the ramp (it comes down like a big "U"), deep underwater. It's holding me there and it's not going anywhere because the end of the ramp drops off about 4 feet deeper and the wheels are behind the crossmember, just dangling off the end of the ramp in probably 5 foot deep water. I don't have a swimsuit or towels and all I want to do is go home, a 6 hour drive. I start swearing like crazy about what the chances are of this actually happening. My brother in law is in the boat and has to swim, fully clothed, over to the ramp. Then, I have him drive the car forward while I waded into water neck-deep and LIFTED the trailer about 3 feet over the lip of the ramp while he drove forward. The fishing boat there got quite an earful of entertainment. It was a completely ridiculous situation. If anyone caught it on film, it would have been an absolute hit on the Internet.

[Chris4x4Gill2]

since he was already wet I'd have talked him into lifting the trailer........that way you could at least have stayed dry

[AbunDiga909]

getting carried away with the blue lights and putting them in places they shouldnt have been. if youre going to start putting lights in really cool places, make sure youre ready for the maintenance that comes along with it.....

[Chad52]

We were coming into the dock one day a couple of years ago, and one of the girls on the boat was handing the keys to someone to go get the trailer. Yep, she dropped them in the water. We were at the dock, but it was in a creek, off the main channel of the Tenn. river. I immediately grabbed my rope and a lead weight and dropped a marker line where she dropped the keys. My depth guage showed about 18' deep, but the water was murky river water with slight current. A couple of people thought they could free dive to the bottom, but that does not work. I called a friend and had him go to my house and get my scuba gear. He showed up with it, I suited up, popped on some gloves and dropped down into the zero vis water using my marker line as a guide. I got to the bottom, got neutral and started a circular slow methodical search pattern using my hands since there was no way to see anything. I was sure I was gonna cut my hands up, but after about 15 minutes of searching, I actually found them. I ascended back up, tossed my gear on the dock, pulled the keys out of my BC pocket and clicked them. They still worked after being under water for about 2 hours. They still work to this day with no problems.

Chad

[SuperSquirt]

In my old Ski Nautique, I remember about 10 years ago I was on a lake surrounded with beautiful mountains and great ski coves. Well, it was a humid mid-summer afternoon and I was wakeboarding behind this SN with skylon and all of a sudden this HUGE lightning storm snuck up on us (about 6 people on board loaded out). We came out of the ski cove into the main channel and headed back towards the dock very quickly. I was still riding at this point and told the driver to floor it cause I was afraid to waste any more time. Lightning was striking continiously all around us and I was scared to death, not to mention riding at 45 mph in serious chop. We finally made it back to the dock and they slung me into the ramp while throwing the keys onto land. As I pulled the boat out of the water, lightning truck a tree across from the boat dock.

Everyone made it out alive, this was by far the scariest boat outing ever! I guess you have to be there with 6 other screaming scaredy cats sitting under the Skylon lightning rod to really appreciate this story. Now i watch the weather religiously and use gps on the boat.

[liquidmx]

Chad, and others who have lost keys check out the linked site (in case you didnt know about this product).

Its also fun for "redneck" fishing to see what you come across.

http://www.overtons.com/modperl/prod...ID=1008&r=view

[Andrew]

got any magnets for costa del mars? i've got two pair in the bottom of my lake

[SlipNSlideKing]

Why you shouldn't recondition props....

[gride300]

i was under the impression they were stronger after being redone..?

[saceone]

you mean why you shouldn't ride a 'bu

[SkiTower]

If it wasn't for reconditioned props I'd be out a LOT of money. Had a boat for 3 years and hit the prop 3 times. My neighbor has had his current boat for 20 years and never hit a prop (and no depth gauge)... Yellow_Flash_Colorz:

[WakeSlayer]

Re: lightning. I was out on a lake with my wife and at the time, young kids. A storm came up and we decided to leave. This is at the same lake that my buddy rockpiled my boat at a few months earlier. The rule there is walk it out, and walk it in because of all the rocks. I was walking the boat up to the launch and the thunder and lightning is reallyl starting to get crazy. Skylon is up, etc. My wife yells to hurry up, which is not helping, I look up and both her and my daughters long hair is standing out and up from the elctricity in the air. Extremely uncool.